so much space to the examination of his first and most popular performance that we have none to spare for his Universal Prayer, and his smaller poems, which, as the puffing journals tell us, would alone constitute a sufficient title to literary immortality. We shall pass at once to his last publication, entitled Satan.
This poem was ushered into the world with the usual roar of acclamation. But the thing was now past a joke. Pretensions so unfounded, so impudent, and so successful, had aroused a spirit of resistance. In several magazines and reviews, accordingly, Satan has been handled somewhat roughly, and the arts of the puffers have been exposed with good sense and spirit. We shall, therefore, be very concise.
Of the two poems we rather prefer that on the Omnipresence of the Deity, for the same reason which induced Sir Thomas More to rank one bad book above another. "Marry, this is somewhat. This is rhyme. But the other is neither rhyme nor reason." Satan is a long soliloquy, which the Devil pronounces in five or six thousand lines of bad blank verse, concerning geography, politics, newspapers, fashionable society, theatrical amusements, Sir Walter Scott's novels, Lord Byron's poetry, and Mr. Martin's pictures. The new designs for Milton have, as was natural, particularly attracted the attention of a personage who occupies so conspicuous a place in them. Mr. Martin must be pleased to learn that, whatever may be thought of those performances on earth, they give full satisfaction in Pandemonium, and that he is there thought to have hit off the likenesses of the various Thrones and Dominations very happily.
The motto to the poem of Satan is taken from the Book of Job: "Whence comest thou? From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it." And certainly Mr. Robert Montgomery has not failed to make his hero go to and fro, and walk up and down. With the exception, however, of this propensity to locomotion, Satan has not one Satanic quality. Mad Tom had told us that "the prince of darkness is a gentleman "; but we had yet to learn that he is a respectable and pious gentleman, whose principal fault is that he is something of a twaddle and far too liberal of his good advice. That happy change in his character which Origen anticipated, and of which Tillotson did not despair, seems to be rapidly taking place. Bad habits are not eradicated in a moment. It is not strange, therefore, that so old an offender should now and then relapse for a short time into wrong dispositions. But
to give him his due, as the proverb recommends, we must say that he always returns, after two or three lines of impiety, to his preaching style. We would seriously advise Mr. Montgomery to omit or alter about a hundred lines in different parts of this large volume, and to republish it under the name of Gabriel. The reflections of which it consists would come less absurdly, as far as there is a more and a less in extreme absurdity, from a good than from a bad angel.
We can afford room only for a single quotation. We give one taken at random, neither worse nor better, as far as we can perceive, than any other equal number of lines in the book. The Devil goes to the play, and moralises thereon as follows:
"Music and Pomp their mingling spirit shed
Around me: beauties in their cloud-like robes
Shine forth,-a scenic paradise, it glares
Intoxication through the reeling sense
Of flush'd enjoyment. In the motley host
Three prime gradations may be rank'd: the first,
To mount upon the wings of Shakspeare's mind,
And win a flash of his Promethean thought,-
To smile and weep, to shudder, and achieve
A round of passionate omnipotence,
Attend the second, are a sensual tribe,
Convened to hear romantic harlots sing,
On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze,
While the bright perfidy of wanton eyes
Through brain and spirit darts delicious fire:
The last, a throng most pitiful! who seem,
With their corroded figures, rayless glance,
And death-like struggle of decaying age,
Like painted skeletons in charnel pomp
Set forth to satirise the human kind!-
How fine a prospect for demoniac view!
'Creatures whose souls out balance worlds awake!'
Methinks I hear a pitying angel cry."
Here we conclude. If our remarks give pain to Mr. Robert Montgomery, we are sorry for it. But, at whatever cost of pain to individuals, literature must be purified from this taint. And, to show that we are not actuated by any feeling of personal enmity towards him, we hereby give notice that, as soon as any book shall, by means of puffing, reach a second edition, our intention is to do unto the writer of it as we have done unto Mr. Robert Montgomery.
AND GLOSSARY OF ALLUSIONS
ABSOLUTE, Sir Anthony, a leading char-
acter in Sheridan's play of The Rivals,
A darker and fiercer spirit, Jonathan
Swift, the great Tory writer (1667-1745),
104
Agbarus or Abgarus, the alleged author of
a spurious letter to Jesus Christ. Edessa
is in Mesopotamia, 459
Alboin, King of the Lombards, 561-573;
he invaded Italy as far as the Tiber, 5
Alcina, the personification of carnal pleas-
ure in the Orlando Furioso, 149
Aldus, the famous Venetian printer (1447-
1515), who issued the Aldine editions of
the classics and invented italic type, 26
Alfieri, Italian dramatist, and one of the
pioneers of the revolt against eighteenth-
century literary and society models
(1749-1803), 540
Algarotti, Francesco, a littérateur, friend
of Voltaire. Frederic made him a count
(d. 1764), 147
Alnaschar, see "The History of the
Barber's Fifth Brother," in the Arabian
Nights, 541
Alva, Duke of, the infamous governor of
the Netherlands (1508-82), 76
Amadeus, Victor, the faithless ruler of
Savoy," who for a bribe deserted Austria,
of whose troops he was commander-in-
chief, for France, in 1692, 479
Arbuthnot, Dr., author of the History of
John Bull, friend of Swift and Pope
(1670-1735), 83
Arminius, a German who, as a hostage,
entered the Roman army, but afterwards
revolted and led his countrymen against
Rome (d. 23 A.D.), 175
Armorica, France between the Seine and
the Loire, Brittany, 173
Artevelde, Von., Jacob v. A. and Philip,
his son, led the people of Flanders in
their revolt against Count Louis and his
French supporters (fourteenth century),
571
Ascham, Roger, and Aylmer, John, tutors
of Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey
respectively, 299
Athalie, Saul, Cinna, dramas by Racine,
Alfieri, and Corneille respectively, 502
Atticus, Sporus, i. e. Addison and Lord
John Hervey, satirized in Pope's Epistle
to Dr. Arbuthnot, 503
Attila, King of the Huns, the "Scourge of
God," who overran the Roman Empire,
but was finally beaten by the allied
Goths and Romans (d. 453), 39
Aubrey, John, an eminent antiquary who
lost a number of inherited estates by law.
suits and bad management (1624-97), 347
BADAJOZ and St. Sebastian, towns in
Spain captured from the French during
the Peninsular War, 132
Bastiani, was at first one of the big Pots
dam grenadiers; Frederic made him
Abbot of Silesia, 147
Bayes, Miss, with reference to the name
used in The Rehearsal, by George
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, to satirize
Dryden, the poet-laureate, 580
Bayle, Pierre, author of the famous Dic
tionnaire Historique et Critique; pro-
fessor of philosophy at Padua and at
Rotterdam (1647-1706), 43
Beauclerk, Topham, Johnson's friend,
"the chivalrous T. B., with his sharp
wit and gallant, courtly ways" (Carlyle),
(1739-80), 539
Beaumarchais, see Carlyle's French Revo-
lution. As a comic dramatist he ranks
second only to Molière. He supported
the Revolution with his money and his
versatile powers of speech and writing.
He edited an edition de luxe of Vol-
taire's works (1732-99), 144, 354, 634
Behn, Afra, the licentious novelist and
mistress of Charles II. (1640-89), who,
as a spy in Holland, discovered the
Dutch plans for burning the Thames
shipping, 563, 649
Belle-Isle, French marshal; fought in the
Austrian campaign of 1740 and repelled
the Austrian invasion of 1744 (d. 1761),
134
Beloe, William, a miscellaneous writer,
whose version of Herodotus, so far from
being flat, is, while "infinitely below the
modern standard in point of accuracy,
much above modern performance in
point of readableness (Dr. Garnett),
(1756-1817), 537
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Bender, 80 miles N.-W. from Odessa, in
S. Russia, 134
Bentley, Richard, master of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and an eminent
philologist (1662-1742), 531
Bettesworth, an Irishman, lampooned in
Swift's Miscellanies, 492
Betty Careless, one of Macaulay's inven-
tions which sufficiently explains itself,
Betty, Master, a boy-actor, known as the
Infant Roscius. Having acquired a
fortune he lived in retirement (1791-
1874), 571
Black Frank, Johnson's negro servant,
Frank Barber, 558
Blackmore, Sir Richard, a wordy poetaster
(d. 1729), who was the butt of all con-
temporary wits, 424, 556, 563, 649
Blair, Dr. Hugh, Scotch divine and critic,
encouraged Macpherson to publish the
Ossian poetry (1718-1800), 454
Blatant Beast, the, does not really die.
See the end of Falry Queen, vi. 401
Bobadil and Beseus, Pistol and Parolles,
braggart characters in Jonson's Every
Man in His Humour, Beaumont and
Fletcher's King and no King, Shake-
speare's Henry V., and All's Well that
Ends Well, respectively, 300
Boileau, Nicholas, the great French critic,
whose Art of Poetry long constituted
the canons of French and English
literary art (1636-1711), 175.
Bolt Court, on the N. side of Fleet Street;
Johnson lived at No. 8 from 1777 till his
death in 1784, 557
Borodino, 70 miles west from Moscow,
where the Russians made a stand against
Napoleon, 1812, 132
Boscan, a Spanish imitator of Petrarch;
Alva's tutor; served in Italy (1485-1533);
77
Bourne, Vincent, an usher at Westminster
School, mentioned early in the "Essay
on Warren Hastings," 467
Boyle, Hon. Charles, edited the Letters of
Phalaris which gave rise to the famous
controversy with Bentley, for which, see
the essay on Sir William Temple (vol. iii.
of this edition), 459
Bradamante, in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso,
a Christian lady who loves the Saracen
knight, Ruggiero, 453
Brothers, Richard, a fanatic who held that
the English were the lost ten tribes of
Israel (1757-1824), 42
Brownrigg, Mrs., executed at Tyburn
(1767) for abusing and murdering her
apprentices, 123
Bruhl, Count, the favourite of Augustus
III. of Saxony who enriched himself at
the risk of ruining his master and his
country, 156
Bucer, Martin, a German reformer who
mediated between Luther and Zwingli,
and became Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge (1491-1551), 364
Buchanan, George, Scottish scholar and
humanist; tutor to Mary Queen of Scots
and James VI. (1506-82), 298, 457
Burn, Richard, an English vicar who com-
piled several law digests, among them
the Justice of the Peace, (1709-85), 416
Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury, sup-
ported the claims of William of Orange
to the English throne, and wrote the
History of My Own Times (1643-1715),
Button's, on the south side of Russell
Street, Covent Garden, succeeded Will's
as the wits' resort, 454
Butts, Dr. physician-in-ordinary to Henry
VIII. (d. 1545) and one of the characters
in Shakespeare's Henry VIII., 217
CACUS, the mythological giant who stole
the oxen of Hercules, 347
Camaldoli, Order of, founded by St.
Romauld, a Benedictine (eleventh
century) in the Vale of Camaldoli
among the Tuscan Apennines, 50
Cambray, Confederates of, the pope, the
emperor. France and Spain who by the
League of Cambray combined to attack
Venice, 163
Campbell, Dr. John, a miscellaneous
political and historical writer (1708-75),
Capreæ, or Capri, a small island nineteen
miles south from Naples, the favourite
residence of Augustus and Tiberius, and
the scene of the latter's licentious orgies,
618
Capuchins, a branch of the monastic order
of the Franciscans, 157.
Carlile, Richard, a disciple of Tom Paine's
who was repeatedly imprisoned for his
radicalism. He worked especially for
the freedom of the Press (1790-1843), 213
Carter, Mrs., a distinguished linguist and
translator of Epictetus, 550
Casaubon, Isaac, Professor of Greek at
Geneva, Curator of the Royal Library
at Paris, Prebendary of Canterbury: a
famous sixteenth-century scholar (1559-
1614), 322, 531
Catinat, French marshal in charge of the
1701 Italian campaign against Marl-
borough's ally, Prince Eugene of Savoy,
Cave, Edward, printer, editor, publisher,
and proprietor of the Gentleman's
Magasine (1691-1754), 126, 551
Châtelet, Madame du, Voltaire's mistress,
1733-47 (d. 1749), 151
Chaulieu, Guillaume, a witty but negligent
poetaster (1639-1720), 169
Chaumette, Pierre, a violent extremist in
the French Revolution who provoked
even Robespierre's disgust; guillotined,
1794, 69
Child's, the clergy coffee-house in St.
Paul's. St. James's (ib.), in the street of
that name, was the resort of beaux and
statesmen and a notorious gambling
house, 497
Chillingworth, William, an able English
controversial divine; suffered at the
hands of the Puritans as an adherent of
Charles I. (1602-43), 43
Churchill, Charles, a clergyman and satiri-
cal poet who attacked Johnson in The
Ghost (1731-64), 543
Clootz, a French Revolutionary and one
of the founders of the "Worship of
Reason:" guillotined 1794, 69, 630
Colburn, (Zerah), b. at Vermont, U.S.A.,
in 1804, and noted in youth for his extra.
ordinary powers of calculation (d. 1840),
Coligni, Gaspard de, French admiral and
leader of the Huguenots; massacred on
St. Bartholomew's Eve, 1572, 296
Collé, Charles, dramatist and song-writer
(d. 1777); young Crébillon (d. 1777)
wrote fiction, 161
Condorcet, a French Marquis (1743-94)
of moderate Revolutionary tendencies,
who fell a victim to the Extremists. He
wrote extensively and clearly, but with-
out genius, 634
Constituent Assembly, the National As-
sembly of France from 1789 to 1792, 157
Corderius, a famous sixteenth-century
teacher-Calvin was a pupil of his-in
France and Switzerland (d. 1564) who
published several school-books, 532
Cortes, conqueror of Mexico (1485-1547);
the Spanish Parliament, 76, 81
Cotta, Caius, a famous Roman orator,
partly contemporary with Cicero, who
mentions him with honour, 54
Courland, a province on the Baltic once
belonging to Poland, since 1795 to
Russia, 174
Coventry, Solicitor-General of England in
1616, Attorney-General in 1620 and Lord
Keeper in 1625, 123
Cradock, Joseph, a versatile writer and
actor whose rambling Literary and
Miscellaneous Memoirs contain several
anecdotes of Johnson and his circle
(1742-1826), 536
Curll and Osborne, two notorious book-
sellers who owe their immortality to
Pope's Dunciad, 548
Curtius, the noble Roman youth who
leaped into the chasm in the Forum and
so closed it by the sacrifice of Rome's
most precious possession--a good citizen,
654
=DACIER, Andrew, a French scholar who
edited the " Delphin" edition of the
classics for the Dauphin, and translated
many of them (1651-1722), 465
Dangerfield, Thomas, Popish plot dis-
coverer and false witness (1650?-1685),
347
Davies, Tom, the actor-bookseller who
wrote the Memoirs of David Garrick,
and was one of Johnson's circle (1712-
85). "The famous dogma of the old
physiologists" is "corruptio unius gene-
ratio est alterius " (Notes and Queries,
Ser. 8, vol. ix., p. 56), 534.
Davila, a famous French soldier and
historian who served under Henry of
Navarre; wrote the famous History of
the Civil War in France (1576-1631),
35, 253
Della Crusca, the signature of Robert
Merry (1755-98), the leader of a
mutual-admiration band of poetasters,
who had their head-quarters at Florence,
and hence called themselves the Della
Cruscans. Gifford (q.v.) pulverised
them in his Baviad and Maviad, 563, 630
Dentatus, the old-type Roman who, after
winning many victories and taking im
mense booty, retired to a small farm
which he himself tilled, 654
Desfontaines, a Jesuit who put out a
pirated edition of Voltaire's La Ligue,
150
Dessaix, a distinguished, upright, and
chivalrous French general under Napo-
leon, who fell at Marengo (1800), 618
Diafoirus, the name of two pedantic
characters in Molière's Malade Imagin
aire, 201
Diatessaron, a harmony of the gospels, the
earliest example being that compiled by
Tatian, c. 170 A.D., 538
Digby, Lord, one of the Royalist leaders
and a typical Cavalier, 406
Diodorus, author of a universal history of
which fifteen books still remain (50 B.C.-
13 A.D.), 536
Distressed Mother, by Ambrose Phillipps,
modelled on Racine's Andromaque, 497
Domdaniel, a hall under the roots of the
ocean, where gnomes, magicians, and
evil spirits hold council (see Southey's
Thalaba), 189
Domenichino, a celebrated Italian painter
of sacred subjects; persecuted and pos-
sibly poisoned by his rivals (1581-1641),
283
Dutch
painter, one of Rembrandt's pupils; his
works are famed for their perfect finish
and delicacy (1613-75), 571
Douw, Gerard, distinguished
Dubois, Guillaume, cardinal and prime
minister of France, noted for his ability
and his debauchery (1656-1723), 420
D'Urfey, Tom, a facetious comedian and
song-writer favoured by Charles II.,
known for his collection of sonnets, Pills
to Purge Melancholy (1628–1723), 444
ECLIPSE, a famous chestnut race-horse
who between 3rd May, 1769, and 4th
October, 1770, had a most successful
record, 538
Encyclopedia, the famous work which,
edited by D'Alembert and Diderot, and
contributed to by the most eminent
savants of France, was issued 1751-77,
and contributed not a little to fan the
flame of Revolution. The Philosophical
Dictionary was a similar production, 71
Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favourite courtier
who took Cadiz in 1596, 95
Euphelia and Rhodoclea... Comelia
Tranquilla, signatures to letters in the
Rambler (Nos. 42, 46; 62; 51; 10, 119),
561
Exons, i. e. "Exempts of the Guards,"
"officers who commanded when the lieu-
tenant or ensign was absent, and who
had charge of the night watch," 593
Eylau, 20 miles south from Konigsberg;
victory of Napoleon, 1807, 132
FAIRFAX, Edward, one of the "im-
provers" of English versification. Trans-
lated Tasso in the same stanzas as the
original, and wrote on Demonology
(d. c. 1632), 555
Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma,
Governor of the Netherlands under
Philip II. and the first commander of his
age, 78
Faunus, grandson of Saturn and god of
fields and shepherds, later identified with
the Greek Pan, 54
Faustina, Empress, (i) wife of Antoninus
Pius; (ii) daughter of (i) and wife of
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